


Find Me

by JuliaJekyll



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sad, So much angst, Unrequited Love, Vulnerable Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaJekyll/pseuds/JuliaJekyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal writes to Will while in prison. Set after Digestivo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you let a slightly drunk, unhappy Julia write fic: she makes Hannibal share her pain.  
> Hopefully someone enjoys it anyway because they love angsty, vulnerable Hannibal as much as I do.   
> Feedback will make me feel better! 
> 
> -Julia

Dear Will,

I hurt.

I suppose, with that simple statement, I could mean one of two things: that I hurt others, or that I myself am in pain.

In this case, both are true.

I am not and have never been oblivious to the fact that what I do is harmful to others, nor am I unaware that sometimes those I choose to kill are undeserving. Beverly Katz, for example. Despite how it may have seemed, I liked that young woman. I killed her because of what she knew, not because of who she was. She was too smart, and too brave, and too foolish, and it resulted in me having to end her.

I liked Abigail, too. I'm sorry you had to lose her, and I'm sorry I was the reason why.

I don't dissociate when I kill. I have never been anything less than fully conscious of my actions, and I take full responsibility for them. Though remembering them is sometimes painful to me—for example, in the case of Abigail, or my sister, Mischa—I never regret them.

Perhaps it is a pathology. I do not dismiss that possibility, because I am honest, at least with myself, and because I am a professional. But I have my reasons for doing what I do, which I have explained to you. When I kill, I express my nature—a nature that all men have, somewhere deep inside. Perhaps, as you yourself can attest, in some, it is not so deeply buried as it is in others.

I like to think that, thanks to me, there is a bit less rudeness and discourtesy in the world. I also believe that, by consuming those I kill, I am simply exercising my right as a dominant creature. If meat is available, should we not eat it? Should the worthy not be nourished by the unworthy? It is only logical. After all, human beings are not nearly so high above our more animalistic cousins as we like to fancy ourselves.

But I did not write this letter in an attempt to sway you to my way of thinking. I have already tried that in a more practical way and, at least for the moment, it has failed. I am not so simple as to think that you could be made to understand by mere words.

I'm writing this because I am in such pain that I can scarcely breathe. I feel a desperate craving in my soul; a need like hunger, but not nearly so simple to satisfy. I need you, Will. I need to feel some sort of connection to you. And so, I write.

I remember holding your body against mine after I cut you: the way you slumped into my arms, your blood staining my skin like so much red paint, creating a pattern the world had never seen before and would, alas, never see again. I recall the staggered breaths that you took as I held you, wholly shocked and wholly dependent on me to keep you upright.

Don't you understand, Will? I could have held you forever. I still could. I wanted to. For ages I wanted to go away, to take you with me, to tell you all that I felt for you and have you accept me for who I was. I sensed a kindred spirit in you, and I was desperate to access it, because, as you can well imagine, kindred spirits have been few and far between in my successful, if rather lonely, life.

By God, I hurt. I think there must be those who do not think me capable of producing tears, much less summoning forth the emotions required to shed them—Jack Crawford is probably one. He beat me to a pulp once, and the only sort of fluid on me afterwards was blood. You, however, have made me cry more times than I care to remember, whether you knew it or not.

I am a predator, Will, but I am still human, and I desire love and acceptance like anyone else does. And so, my confession: I love you desperately, in a way that makes my chest burn. I look back on the countless times I wanted to seal my lips over yours, making everything clear with the movement of my mouth, with the grip of my hands on your face, your neck, your waist. I believe I would have preferred you taking a knife of your own and running me through with it over hearing you say that you didn't want to know where I am. That you didn't want to think about me at all.

You are constantly in my thoughts, and the agony of knowing that you no longer want me in yours borders on the hellish.

Will you let me tell you what I think about, when I miss you the most? In the moments when I bite my lips so I can imagine that you've just kissed me hard, or when I dig my newly-blunted fingernails into my skin to provide myself with a physical pain as a distraction from the emotional pain?

I imagine the two of us together, my arms wrapped around you, no knives or blood except that which beats through our veins, sharing our warmth, both mildy aroused but not acting on it. I imagine pressing kiss after kiss into your hair, telling you the truth: that I love you. I imagine that you love me back, that you kiss me and whisper my name. And I imagine that we have a whole life together stretching out ahead of us, beautiful and reckless.

But none of it is real. You have made it quite clear that you do not love me, and, what is worse, that you do not _want_ to love me. This is why I ache: predator though I am, I cannot capture you. I can stab your body, but I cannot enter your heart. I can only long for you, and take some small measure of solace in the knowledge that, whether you want to or not, you know where I am, and you can come and find me easily, should you ever wish to.

Please, Will: should the desire to do so ever enter your mind, do not ignore it. Come to me.

Forever Yours,

Hannibal Lecter


End file.
